


Pride Stripped Bare

by Farashe



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Solavellan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 18:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3499208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farashe/pseuds/Farashe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ylleth Lavellan returns to Skyhold alone after her post-Temple of Mythal outing with Solas. All she wants to do is hide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride Stripped Bare

She wished she’d worn a cloak. The kind with a deep, concealing hood.

It wasn’t the stares. Those Ylleth could pretend were due only to her exalted rank. People stared as she passed all the time. True, it happened less here at Skyhold where people were used to her presence, but even still, she was accustomed to people watching her as she went, transfixed by the great and noble Inquisitor.

No, it was the whispers: the startled gasps and furtive pointing that led to hushed speculation. It was the way everyone fell silent as they saw her only to whisper frantically to their companions as soon as she was past them.

Yes, a hood would have helped. As it was, her only choice was to walk with her shoulders squared and her head held high. She would give no indication that she saw the stares or heard the whispers. Her heart lay shattered back in that quiet, lovely grove and her soul was a shrunken pain-filled shadow of what it had been only a few hours ago, but she still had her pride.

Pride.

_Solas._

His name intruded on her thoughts, and she stumbled slightly. She regained her footing and noticed her surroundings. She had entered Skyhold’s great hall. She was almost there, almost to the tower door that meant privacy, at least for a while. But it also meant… Against her own will she looked to her right at the doorway that led to his haunt, that circular room filled with his beautiful art and the sense of his magic. Even from here, she could feel its familiar power humming through her.

She was rooted to the spot, and her eyes began to burn with imminent tears. _Fenedhis!_ She had thought she had exhausted all of her tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished again for that hooded cloak she would never have thought she’d need when he’d taken her hand and led her to that lovely, secluded place.

Her shoulders slumped and her body began to tremble. She was losing it. The whispers around her grew louder, and some onlookers even approached her cautiously, voicing concern. But she was too far gone in her own world, her mind mixing the brutal memories of the grove with the familiar sense of Solas’ magic here at Skyhold, for her to acknowledge that concern. She felt the first tear leak between her closed lids. This was it; she wouldn’t even be allowed to keep her pride, even that last vestige of her self was about to be stripped from her.

“Come with me,” a soft voice said at her side, somehow breaking through to her.

Her eyes opened allowing more tears to spill freely down her cheeks, but no one was looking at her. They had all gone back to whatever task or conversation her entrance had interrupted. She looked toward where the voice had come from. Cole. Of course. His hand touched her elbow gently.

“I can help. Your pain, you want to hide it from them. I can help.”

“I...Yes. Please. I know I’ll have to face them eventually, but just for tonight.”

Cole propelled her toward the tower door that led to her chambers keeping his hand on her elbow, lending her his ability to go unnoticed. Once through the door, he let go, but he didn’t leave.

He considered her for a moment. She could no longer read his expression; Cole seemed so much more alien since she and Solas had gotten the amulet to work. Solas. His name again. She shivered and touched her face with her fingertips unconsciously. She snatched her hand away as soon as she noticed what she was doing.

“Thank you, Cole,” she said to distract herself as well as out of real gratitude.

“It doesn’t make you less,” he said instead of responding to her thanks. “You feel like he took a part of you away, but he didn’t. You think what happened changed how he felt, but that isn’t what happened. He still feels the same. I don’t know the why, but I feel his pain too.” Cole closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them his gaze was far away. “Bright and beautiful. Burning so brilliantly. I never thought I’d find a spirit like hers.” Cole focused back on her. “I can see you too. Your spirit. It’s still the same; your face doesn’t change that. It doesn’t make you less.”

Ylleth clung to Cole’s words. She didn’t believe them, maybe someday, but not now. But she needed those words. She took a deep breath then nodded to Cole. He gazed back at her for a moment then was gone.

She made her way up the stairs and into her chamber. She changed out of her clothes and went to wash her tear-stained face. Once her face was clean, she looked up into the mirror. She didn’t know the woman that stared back: that woman without vallaslin.

“It doesn’t make you less,” she whispered and watched that stranger in the reflection speak with her. No, she didn’t believe those words, not yet, but she would pretend she did.

After all, she still had her pride.

**Author's Note:**

> I romanced Solas in my second playthrough so I knew it was going to be rough. But I had no idea how rough it would turn out to be. I replayed that scene where Solas tells her about the vallaslin a bunch of times to see all the different ways I could play it. They were all heart-wrenching. I did really want there to be more about peoples' reactions to the Inquisitor suddenly have no vallaslin (if you chose that way) since the only reaction I got was from Sera. So, in my usual way, if I didn't get the scene I wanted in the game, I wrote it. Yay, feelings! I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
